October 2011 ‘My 28,000 images of child porn are just like stamp collecting’: Married civil servant’s excuse for sickening stash A civil servant who downloaded more than 28,000 indecent images of children from the internet said his sordid habit was no different to ‘stamp collecting’. Steven Hawkins, of Hilperton, near Trowbridge, Wiltshire, catalogued and stored the vile pictures and films on CDs and DVDs, many of which he then protected with ten layers of encryption. But the married 53-year-old told the police he got no sexual gratification and that he hoarded the vile images in the same way people collect stamps or coins. Now MoD civilian worker Hawkins, who the court heard held a ‘responsible job with the Navy’, has been jailed for a year. And Judge Euan Ambrose, sitting at Swindon Crown Court, told him: ‘It is very far from stamp collecting. ‘The interest in these images and the market that this interest creates is what drives the production of the images and the production involves the abuse of children, and very young ones at that.’ George Threlfall, prosecuting, told how police raided his home in July 2009 after receiving information that he had been downloading child pornography. And when they took away his computer and storage media they found 28,114 indecent pictures and a further 199 movies of children. Among the more serious images, he said, two-thirds were of children under the age of thirteen and a sample of the less serious all fell into the younger category. The last images had been created the day before the police raid and the first in October 1997, almost twelve years earlier. Many of the more serious images involved the abuse of children under 10 and some as young as five. He had also been typing entries for ‘pre-teen hardcore’ pornography and similar terms into search engines. When they examined the storage media they found more than 3,000 encrypted files, none of which could be accessed without unlocking. Hawkins pleaded guilty to one count of possession and thirteen of making indecent images of children.Mike Jeary, defending, said since his arrest his client has been on a course run by charity The Lucy Faithful Foundation to address his offending. He said the reason for encrypting the files was to stop anyone else, such as his wife, finding them and he gave the passwords to the police when they asked. The judge said: ‘You have in due course entered guilty plea to all charges having initially denied them in interview and having maintained for a long time that this was innocent possession, nothing to do with you. ‘Then possession came on the back of adult pornography, then possession in the form of some urge to collect images rather than getting any sexual gratification from it relating it to stamp collecting. It is very far from stamp collecting.’ As well as jailing him, the judge also banned him from working with children and told him he must register as a sex offender for ten years. A spokesman for the MoD said: ‘It would be inappropriate for the Ministry of Defence to comment further on what is a civil matter.’